


After the Organization

by Falco276



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falco276/pseuds/Falco276
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a result of boring days, follow Roxas, Axel and Xion after their 358 days in Organization XIII. A few spoilers might be there, as well as AkuRoku... Enjoy! AND PLEASE REVIEW! :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Axel

A hooded figure walks down the darkened dirt road. The meringue light that floods the street below the lamps also illuminates the storefronts, but fails to catch the seventeen-year-old hidden by a hood.  
His head raises slightly, and he looks up at a tall hill that cradles a house. A boarding house.  
His head lowers, and his legs propel forward. The heavy boots clunk against the hard ground, long ends of his coat entangling between them.  
He know's where to go.  
His legs just don't think they can keep him up.  
"But I'll make it," He promises himself, clutching an ice-cream stick in his palm. "I'll defiantly try."   



	2. Roxas

In a darkened room of the house on the hill, a boy sits up and looks around the room in fear.  
Nothing's there.  
Good.  
He settles back into bed, accepting the fact that he's not sleeping for the rest of the night. After a while of staring at the nothing above his head, he moves to perch on his windowsill.   
He leans his face to it's cool painted boarder and takes it in: The smaller hills speckled with the stars of lit windowpanes, the forever velvet sky dotted with diamonds, the reflection off the water of the far-away ocean, only visible if you look really close.   
When he bores of this landscape, of what lies beyond it, his gaze moves to his desktop.   
It's kept away in a box, a simple box with the numerals XIV engraved on the lid. He hasn't opened it in a long time.   
He knows exactly what's in it. He knows what it is. It just reminds him too much of...her.   
Usually hot fire would pour into his veins when he couldn't fight the name out of his foggy memory. But now, he was numb to the anger. The three-hundred and fifty-seven days with the Organization were the last thing he wanted on his mind, he finally realized.   
His eyes flick to the closet. In the closet and the box-the two only places that held his two only keepsakes from that time of his life. Most of his memories preserved there.   
Only a year of time, but majority of his memories.   
Often he wonders, "What would've happened if I didn't leave in a rage? Would Axel and I be friends again? Would-" He struggles for one desperate moment before moving on, "-She still be alive?"  
He doesn't know.   
And though according to the Superior, Xemnas, who always stated that none of them had a heart to feel with, Roxas manages to cry. 


	3. Axel

The hooded man is struggling. The hill side path that leads to the house is much steeper than anticipated. Or maybe that was fatigue talking again.  
He tries to remember the last time he's seen Roxas, besides in his nightmares. Latest he could remember was recently after Roxas had escaped the Castle. When the word had gotten out that Saix was found beaten into the ground, the first thing he'd assumed was that Roxas was to blame.   
When he'd gone to the Dark City on a whim, he hadn't been surprised that Roxas happened to cross his path.   
It was his words that had stunned him.   
"No one would miss me."  
"That's not true," Axel thinks. He looks up at the stars.   
"I do."  



	4. Roxas

The next morning, Roxas wanders around the home before breakfast. It was technically a boarding house, one he'd found after fleeing both Twilight Town and the Organization, but they treated him like a kid here. Not exactly something a fifteen-year-old approved of. Especially with Roxas being who he was.   
"Hey there Rox!" Eya calls from the kitchen. Mentally rolling his eyes at the nickname, he says "Hey" back before continuing down the hall.   
On the balcony, as he presumed, Carl and Mollie sit in the same old fold-up chairs as they looked over the same old view of the town.  
"Morning, Roxas, m'boy," Carl says as he walked by. Already he could smell the rancid odor of alcohol on his breath.   
"Morning," He mumbles. Finally he opens the door of the dining hall.   
"Why is it at the end of the hall, where you have to walk by EVERYONE to get there?" He wonders as he eats.  
This place was strange to him. Adults were the weirdest. First of all, there were a lot more adults than kids in this world, somehow. In Twilight Town, the only person older than twenty was the the ice-cream vendor. In The Castle That Never Was, the majority of the members were adult, but acted a lot like a gang of teenagers.   
Once he finished, he trooped back to his room and changed into the outfit he was meant to wear as the ice-cream vendor in the park.   
One thing that upset him about this job was that they sold no sea-salt ice-cream.   
Even if there did have sea-salt ice-cream, who would he share it with? It wasn't like he had any friends anymore.   
There were many differences in this world.   



	5. Roxas

Roxas works his way down the hill. It's a treacherous one, but manageable. Until the last stretch, when you had to run to avoid falling flat on your face.   
It was a cool morning, but that was okay with him. All those days in Agrabah wearing black leather had taught him to appreciate the cold weather.   
Agrabah hadn't been the best place for him. First trip there, he'd fallen into a coma. Later, when he'd gone there with number XIV, he near passed out again.  
Those days had been horrible. Using the Keyblade had worn him out, and he could've sworn Saix was purposely assigning him the tough missions.   
Then the last time...  
He didn't want to think about the last time.  
Instead, to prove to himself that he still could, he summoned the Keyblade.   
But he had forgotten once again.   
Ever since that last day in Agrabah, he wielded not one Keyblade, but two.   
One was the one that had been his original Key. Now it was white, curved, pure-looking. Pretty, in a word.   
The other...dark, sharp, eerie. Something to be used offensively. It wasn't really his, honestly the exact opposite.   
Imminently he shook them off and they clattered to the path, then disappear. He shoved his hands in his pockets and continued his walk.   
The postman walked by. Roxas is quick to put his head down to avoid conversation.   
Even after the business-like steps fade away he keeps his chin to his chest. Then he stops in his tracks.   
An ice-cream stick. In the middle of the path.  
It would be an ordinary sight, except for two factors.  
One, ice-cream here didn't come on sticks. Popsicles came on sticks. Not ice-cream.   
Two, there were words on this ice-cream stick. Actually, one word, but one that Roxas recognizes clear as day.  
WINNER.  
Breath catches in the middle of Roxas' throat, clogging his air pipe. As far as he knew, the only ice-cream stick like that was the one he'd given to Axel.  
Axel. This wasn't the first time he'd missed his friend so much. He picks up the stick and twirls it between his fingers.  
Early in his Organization XIII days, Axel had been transferred to Castle Oblivion. Xion hadn't yet come into his life. Axel was his only friend.   
The day before Axel left, right after he'd left their after-work meeting place of Twilight Town's Clock Tower, was when Roxas had uncovered the WINNER. He'd tried to catch him the next morning, but it was too late.   
Axel was gone.  
Then the day the news came.  
The whole Castle Oblivion 'dream team' was 'anhiliated.'  
That was also the day he had gone into his month-long comatose state. Not his best day.   
Even after he'd come to, Axel was still gone. Roxas gave up on himself, only going between the Castle and his missions.  
Axel had shown back up, but Roxas never asked what the WINNER meant. Actually he did ask, but not Axel. He'd asked the ice-cream vendor when his curiosity had gotten the best of him. It only meant when he turned it in he got a free ice-cream.   
Axel had only seen it after Roxas had left. Sure, towards the end, Axel had begun to lie, about what he knew, about Xion. But Roxas had left the stick in his room as a farewell present, a peace treaty.   
He hadn't even known if Axel had gotten it.  
Apparently he had.  
The mere thought that Axel might be nearby made him feel shallow-breathed and adrenaline-shaky. He knew Xion was gone;no doubt about that. Axel, though, there was a chance. A chance to get some of what he remembered of his short fifteen years back.   
Now he's looking, looking, looking. Tall grass everywhere. Would Axel still be in his coat? Probably. He wasn't bad, he was just with the bad guys cause he had no place else to go.  
A dip by the side of the road was invisible until you fell into it. Roxas learns this the hard way, tumbling head over heels.   
When he saw who was in the ditch with him, that's when he felt like his whole mental state was going to crumble.   
His friend, his only true friend left, lying upside-down in the ditch. His legs were elevated up the slope, his head curved against his chest. It looks as if he had fallen who knows when.  
And Axel never fell.  
"How did this happen?" Roxas thought as he crawled over on all fours. "Axel, you never fall."  
Looking down at Axel's face made him feel sick. Though all Nobodies seemed to be unusually pale, Axel's pasty skin tone was sickly. The only other color on his face were the grey-purple makeup lines he wore, the same color as the dark circles that brushed the top of them.  
"Axel," At first a whisper. "Axel," Spoken now. "Axel!" Roxas grabbed his shoulders in desperation. "Axel, please wake up, please!"   
Nothing for a while. Roxas grips Axel's arm with one hand, the ice-cream stick in the other, afraid. Was Axel not going to wake up? Had he lost him? Lost the second of the two people that mattered in this world?   
"AXEL!" Roxas screams in genuine fear for all the world to hear. He grabs the sides of his face and gives it a few tense shakes. "Axel! Wake UP, damn it!" He was NOT leaving him now.   
A slight groaning takes Roxas' hands away from the sides of Axel's face. He sits back and waits. Before he knows it, Axel's bright green eyes are staring back at him.   
"Roxas?" He tries to sit up and almost falls again.  
"Woah, take it easy, man," Roxas supports his friend while they re orientate him.   
"Uh, Roxas-"  
"Here's your ice-cream stick." Roxas says as he hands it back with a smile.   
Axel smiles too. "Thanks. But what are-"  
"Here, I'll take you back up to the house. How did you know where I was?" Roxas stands and offers his hand, helping his long-lost friend up.  
"Long, tiring story. You cannot believe some of the shit I had to go through." Axel manages to stand on his feet for a grand total of half a second before almost face-planting the dirt.  
"Geez, what part of 'take it easy' did you not get?" Roxas asks while holding his friend upright.   
Axel laughs hoarsely. "'Take it easy' isn't in my vocabulary. Got it memorized?"  
Roxas grins at the old joke. "Yep."  
"Hey, Roxas," Axel asks, finally getting to what he wanted to ask from the beginning.   
"Huh?"  
He chuckles again. "Man, what the hell are you wearing?"  
Roxas looks down at his 'Happy Ice-Cream' pastel-blue outfit. He smiles meekly at Axel.   
"Guess I'm not going to work today."   



	6. Roxas and Axel

Roxas manages to get Axel past Carl and Mollie, even if it isn't a large feat. At this time of day they're too drunk to care.   
No one else is home, or at least out and about in the hallways. Roxas gets Axel safely to his room.   
Almost immanently, Axel collapses on the bed. Roxas tears apart his drawers and the far corners of his closet, pulling out all the unworn and too-big hand-me-downs for Axel.   
"Here," He dumps T-shirts and pairs of baggy sweatpants on the bed.   
The redhead barely opens one eye. "Mmm, later." The eyelid hides the green again.  
Roxas sits, rolling a little blue marble between his fingers and waiting until Axel had revived himself. When he bored of the marble, he washed away all the dust and changed from his work clothes, then called his boss. She was a soft soul, and it wasn't hard to fake sickness.   
He went downstairs after the call and made himself a sandwich, deciding halfway through to bring one up to Axel. He finished his halfway up the staircase.   
When he opened the door, Axel was at the foot of the bed, examining the clothes Roxas had left. He was holding a green T-shirt advertising 'Green Leprechaun's Pub' at arm's length.  
"Geez, Roxas, where'd you get this?" He throws the shirt at the wall. "It smells like Luxord after a vacation day."  
"Sorry. That was probably from Carl." He sets the plate and sandwich on the desk, and as soon as it's gotten away from one hand it's in Axel's mouth. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, they say.  
"How's life been, mister PMS?" Axel asks around a mouthful of sandwich.   
Roxas rolls his eyes. "I'm not Larxene, I'm Roxas."  
Axel snorts. "Okay, well how's life been, mister Roxas?"  
He shrugs. "Well, how good can it be after all...that."  
Axel frowns while he chews. Silence fills the room.   
"Can you still summon the Keyblade, even out of our worlds?" He asks, all serious now.  
Roxas nods. How could he explain dual wielding now? "Yeah. You still got your chackrams?"  
"Yep!" Axel calls them forth in a flourish of flames.  
"Cut it would, showoff," Roxas nudges him. "Flurry of Dancing Flames, more like Flurry of Self-Conceived Flames."  
"Take it back!" Axel points one of the chackram points to his friend's face, a smirk lifting the corners of his face.  
"Sure, why not?"   
He rolls his eyes and the chackrams disappear. "Haha, you're so funny." He jokes, stuffing the last of the sandwich between his jaws.  
Roxas smiles, and his eyes drift to the engraved box. He might as well have put a padlock on it and thrown the key in Neverland's sea. It hadn't been open since the day he got it.  
Axel's eyes follow Roxas' path, to the XIV. His eyes held a slight question. Sure, he knew who XIV was, but he couldn't understand why Roxas had that box, or what might be in it. He looked back at his friend, who was still staring blankly, sadly.   
"What's up, Roxas?" Axel asks.  
"Oh..." Roxas blinks and comes back to reality. "Oh! Nothing, I'm fine!"  
"Alright," He says, obviously unconvinced.   
"So," Roxas begins.  
"So, found out there's no sea-salt ice-cream here," Axel grumbles. Roxas laughs.  
"Yeah, found that out really fast," Roxas agrees. "They got ice-cream that looks like it, and they've got caramel sea-salt ice-cream, but it's not the same."  
"Aww, hell no. Nothing can compare to Twilight Town's sea-salt ice-cream."  
Roxas smiles. "Got that right."   
Axel stands and stretches his arm back, rolling his shoulder. "Eh. Let's go see if it's got anything close."  
"Heh heh," Roxas laughs a little. "Okay with me."   



	7. Xion

Float through a wall. Don't want to see them anymore. Don't know if I can handle it.   
The box. I can't believe that I actually touched it. It was like seeing my life flash before my eyes.  
Again.   
And I forgot what touching things significant to your life does.  
It makes the people significant in your life remember them, and look at them. It makes them go into that blank stage, the one in which you're seeing nothing through your eyes but a lot in your head.  
It's the stage where they think of you.  



	8. Roxas

Axel lives with Roxas for the weeks that pass. Everyone in the home notices the fifteen-year-old's change in behavior. But no one necessarily talks about it.   
Axel's a pretty good kid, is what they all say. A gentleman, a good man, a smart boy. Good for little Roxas. A big brother figure.   
They saw him as all these good things.  
Roxas saw him as a friend.  
Axel saw himself as Axel.  
They wasted their time by being boys. They roamed around the town, climbed on the roof and watched the sunsets, remembered the days on the prowl in different worlds. The one they talked about most, Twilight Town, was their only free place. It was tough to think of it as only a good place, but it was what it was to them.   
Before long, Roxas knew he had to go back to work. Until Axel decided to stay for good, he only had to pay for his own rent, but not working for a week had been a little bit of a long shot.   
Axel hung around the house while Roxas worked, and was always ready for whatever when he got home. Sometimes he would just nod, but other times he managed to pick him up and spin him around and gush about how much he had missed "Roxy Poo!"  
That usually earned him a punch in the arm, but Roxas liked these days the best, honestly. It was nice to come home to something other than an empty room.   
Roxas didn't know if it was just him, or what, but besides the occasional welcome home greetings, Axel was mysteriously quiet. He rarely seemed to speak, was always deep in thought, sometimes saying things very loud or very soft.  
One very nice, bright day, Roxas came home hoping for a warm welcome, but found Axel at the top of the cellar stairs.   
It wouldn't have been strange, except for Axel's panicked look and the fact that Roxas had never told him where the basement was, nor had anyone else given him this knowledge.   
"Roxas! C'mere, quick!" Axel gestured wildly.   
"What? What's going-" As soon as he reached Axel, he flung Roxas down the stairs.  



	9. Xion

I don't know how he did it. I guess even my afterlife has its questions.   
Axel's always sort of had an air of mystery. Not as much as many of the members did, but there was always something accommodating him.  
No he's finally gone and put that to good use.  
I didn't think anyone could communicate with me.   
Apparently, he's found me out.  
I've been able to tell him almost everything. What happened before Roxas and I disappeared, what happened after, why I'm here. Well, almost all of why I'm here.   
I told him I had no where else to go.  
And that's not true. 


	10. Roxas

Time slows.  
It's eerily deja vu-ish to when he fell off the clock tower, only now, there's no voice to occupy his swirling mind.  
"Why would you do that? I thought we were friends! I could be dead in two seconds! Are you possessed? Are you being controlled by Xemnas too? Please no. Why?" Million-mile-an-hour thoughts rushed through Roxas' head.  
Instinctively he draws his hands up to protect his head. It's far better to break your arms than your head, he thought.   
Just then, he felt a physical force in midair. It was like he had hit a person, but it acted like a wall, and made him go cartwheeling again.   
How long had he been falling? Seconds? Minutes? It didn't matter how long now.   
He was going to hit the the ground in zero point two seconds flat. 


	11. Xion

You see, I followed Roxas for some time after the last day, the three-hundredth and fifty-seventh day, all through the day he found Axel.   
Of course, he never knew.   
Axel proposed a way to bring me back, but I refused.   
The dead are the dead, I told him, and that's the way it is.   
The forgotten are the forgotten, I thought to myself, and that's the way it is.  
Axel doesn't like people messing up his personal agenda. If he's thought it through, and he knows what he's doing, you can say whatever you want to him. He'll still do what he wants. So do you think he listened to what I said?  
Exactly. 


	12. Roxas

"Am I dead?" Roxas thought hazily. The world spun like a kaleidoscope, stars danced in his eyes, and he couldn't feel his arms or legs.  
And he was seeing the dead, he swears.   
Because when was the last time he'd seen the Organization coat on a body? Or hell to that fact, black hair and blue eyes? Only one person, to his knowledge, had those color combinations.  
He closes his eyes and forced himself to move, stomach to back, back to knees. When he tries to stand, Axel was there, catching him as he fell and wasn't even aware of it.   
"Woah-ah-ah-ah-ah," His face and words skip in and out of focus. He supports Roxas to his feet. The black-haired, blue-eyed apperation-or what he thought was one-began talking angrily to Axel, who, for once was calm and quiet.  
"That's a first," He thinks. 


	13. Xion and Axel

Roxas eyes have rolled back into his head. Axel bites his lip and faces an infuriated Xion.   
"Look, I know you're angry, I know you didn't want me to, but we need to get Roxas out of here before anyone comes down here."  
The basement is deserted at the moment, and besides the three teenagers, it's cluttered with dust, dirt, and decaying cardboard boxes.   
Xion really looks like she's going to literally explode, but she takes Roxas' arm and loops it over her shoulder.   
They walk between the rotting furniture and precariously leaning towers of boxes to the door. Axel nudges it open and they slip into the back field, the one that leads to the ocean.  
"What about Carl and Mollie?" Xion whispers.  
"This late in the day, it's the least of our problems," Axel murmurs as he slams the door. They raise their heads to the porch slats above their head, but nothing happens.  
"M'kay, you've proven your point." Xion shifts under Roxas' weight. Axel takes his arm and they continue across the gently rolling hills.   
After fifteen minutes of silence, Axel says, "You know, you're going to thank me for this someday."  
"Maybe someday." She has that tough look on her face that got her quite the rep back at the Castle. Roxas knows it. Axel knows it. The whole Organization knows it.   
Ahem. KNEW it.   
"Don't be so pissy. You'll love me someday." Axel nudges jokingly.  
"Oh, we'll see about that, 'Flurry of Self-Conceived Flames.'" Xion smiles. Already, he could tell, she was defiantly going to forgive him. And be happy he'd done this.  
And he was glad about that. 


	14. Roxas

Stars. A million glowing stars.  
They all come down as the sky get's brighter, assemble in his open arms.  
First they're only a vague form.   
Then it has shapes of arms and legs. The stars are making a person.   
Two blue stars lower to the person's face, and the rest begin to darken.  
The blue stars have become eyes. Tired eyes. Exhausted eyes. Sad eyes.   
They lock on his. A dead-star hand reaches up and holds the side of his face.  
"Never forget," A strained voice comes from her once-sparkling lips, "That's the truth."  
Her hand falls, he catches it, and everything fast-forwards.   
The stars begin to glow again.   
The two blues lead the rest to the darkening sky.  
Roxas stares up to the stars as the voice comes again. "You and I will be together, forever..." He sees those two blue stars. "Forever..." 


	15. Roxas

Stars. A million glowing stars.  
Roxas lies there, waiting for the stars to gather to his arms.  
They don't.  
Instead, two blue eyes-two REAL blue eyes-pop over his head.  
"You okay?"   
Xion.  
"Xion," Roxas realizes.   
She smiles. While he's never seen her cry, even when she was living the reality of her own death, it looks as if she just might now.   
A hand ruffles his hair.  
"Let's hear it for the Flurry of Self-Conceived Flames now, huh?" Axel's green eyes appear over his head now.   
Roxas smiles weakly as he helps him up. "Yeah yeah, we all love you." He does give him a hug, which Axel accepts. He rubs his back a little, which actually feels really good.   
"Roxas," Xion smiles her little smile. He remembers when he and Xion were paired for her first few missions. On one peculiar day, she said his name before Returning to The Castle.   
The first word she ever said.   
"Roxas."  
"I'm glad you're okay," She says sheepishly. A little bit of time passes, a brief, embarrassing silence before Xion finally does something.  
She moves forward and wraps her arms around Roxas' neck, biting her lip to stop the tears. Roxas' arms come to hold her, and Axel joins in, wrapping his arms around both of them, encasing them in a cocoon.   
"I missed you guys," Xion mumbles.   
"We did too," Axel and Roxas say simultaneously. They all look at each other, then laugh, disbanding their arms from each other.  
In the light of the half-moon, Roxas looks at his friends.  
Axel's glancing between the house and their faces as they talk, probably thinking they need to head back before long. He's in a pair of jeans a bit too small for him but would engulf Roxas' feet, and that green T-shirt that has been stripped of its alcoholic smell.  
Xion's still wearing her coat, some of it ripped and torn. Her face and eyes are smiling, so Roxas is able to dismiss the hurt in a blink of an eye.   
"Funny," He thinks as he laughs at one of Axel's many jokes, "I'm not so sad anymore."


End file.
